*&9»-93-] ^73 



circle. At last he took off his coat, turned it inside out, put it 

 on again, and found his way home immediately. 



Several stories were quoted to show the prevailing belief in 

 the danger of interfering with or injuring a fairy ring or a rath. 



The second paper on the programme was by Mr. William H. 

 Patterson, M.R.I.A., on the subjects of " Irish Fairies." The 

 reader said that among all nations and races of men, especially 

 in their earlier and more primitive days, beliefs were held in 

 things that were beyond the objects and events of every-day 

 life, and many of these beliefs have come down to our own 

 days. In the old times life was hard enough ; the struggle for 

 bare existence took all the time that people had, and when 

 serious hurts or sickness came, death generally followed soon. 

 Some simple remedies gathered from the ground or the trees 

 were tried, but help was also sought from charms and strange 

 practices. It was well for these unlearned forefathers of ours 

 that they had something wherewith they could hope to meet 

 the hostile influences which they believed were all around 

 them. 



They believed that fairies were on the watch, as soon as 

 dusk or darkness had set in, to steal them away, or to smite 

 them with pains in every limb, with blindness, or with madness ; 

 to carry off their infants, and leave a grinning, peevish imp in 

 the cradle where the chubby, smiling baby had lain an hour 

 before ; to kill their cattle, or with their impish tricks to steal 

 away their milk, which in early days was a matter of far more 

 consequence than we can now understand ; even still in many 

 parts of this country the flint arrow-heads, which can be seen 

 in many museums, are called elf-shots or elf-stones, and the 

 belief is that these are made by the fairies and shot at cows by 

 the fairies, and in many places when a cow takes ill, the people 

 send for the fairy-doctor, who not at once, but after certain 

 charms are made, pretends to find and take out the elf-shot 

 from some part of the animal's body. Flint arrow-heads and 

 stone hatchets are kept in farm houses to use as charms against 

 the evil doings of the fairy race. 



